Saturday, February 25, 2006

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Werner Herzog's GRIZZLY MAN is tragic but hilarious with it. Timothy Treadwell survived camping with bears for over a dozen summers & the film shows footage of him in dangerous proximity to these majestic creatures. He's seen swimming with them & even touching younger ones on the nose! It seems he wanted to escape reality & BE a bear! He shot over 100 hours of footage & of course only a fraction is seen in the documentary but perhaps we'll see something similar to the above on the DVD special features?!

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Now the Times Life Of Pi illustration has closed I was going to post my Life Of Pi entry until I discovered that half my artwork archive has been deleted from the studio server! The final piece wasn't too different from the original shown here - it was in dust-jacket format with a revised Orang & Hyena & the 'island' added in the background.

Here's some thumbnails that I did while exploring the island & alternative images.

While on a 'tiger' theme,this series of photos appeared in the Sunday Times a couple weeks back. I was struck by the sheer power & grace in the animal's leap.

All 15 shortlisted Pi illustrations can be viewed at www.thetimesonline.co.uk/books

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

The latest theme in the Eurovision Art Challenge was 'Lady Godiva'. A great theme with lots of fun potential. I came up with a couple of approaches & struggled like heck to make the 'foxhunt' work. I prefer the 'jockey' version but finished it too late to meet the deadline!

These are some of my thumbnails exploring the subject.

Found this sign for a posh chocolatier in Paris, just off la place Vendome.

Also on a movie theme I saw a couple of new releases in the cinema from Luc Besson. BANDIDAS was written & produced by Besson. It's a fun romp with Salma Hayak & Penelope Cruz as bank robbers in turn-of-the-century Mexico. It's pretty mindless stuff but fairly entertaining & the girls look great.

ANGELA-A is his first directorial gig since JOAN OF ARC. It's on a much smaller scale than his 'Hollywood' pictures. Shot on location around Paris in black & white it's a film noirish tale of a low-life hustler who seeks saviour in the form of an angel. She's played by Danish amazon Rie Rasmussen who must have the longest legs in cinema. The effect is exaggerated by her co-star, French comedian Jamel Debbouze, who is TINY next to her!

In France you can get hold of rare animation films that aren't distributed in the UK. Recently I picked up a couple of anime movies that I've been after for a long time. Sci-fi epic TREE OF PALME relates the quest of a Pinnochio-like cyborg boy & his journey through a surreal dystopian future. There's some dazzling visuals & the alien backgrounds are reminiscent of Roger Dean's artwork.

SPACE FIREBIRD is an old film from the 80's written by Osama Tezuka & directed by Taku Sugiyama . The animation isn't great but the film is very inventive visually. Highlights include a robotic-girl who can fold up like a deck chair & a swooping aerial camera move over a city that isentirely hand drawn!

Friday, February 03, 2006

In Paris a couple weekends ago I visited the Japanese Cultural Centre where they were holding an exhibition called YOKAI.YOKAI is Japanese for 'goblin' & the show featured artwork on paper & long scrolls that depicted goblins, spirits, demons & the supernatural. It was one of the most fun shows I've ever seen & I couldn't draw enough! The catalogue had sold out so I tried to get down as many of these creatures as possible.

Ooh, that's gotta hurt! Apparently demons love to torture humans.

Frogs & toads seem to be held in low regard in Japanese mythology - they're always presented as evil, diabolical or bad omens.

Those really are that squirrel's nuts! He'll have trouble burying THEM this winter!

The exhibition had a trailer playing for Takeshi Miike's latest film 'THE GREAT GOBLIN WAR'. A fantasy film released last year in Japan it was a local effort to create a film similar to The Lord of the Rings but using Japanese mythology. It's aimed at a younger audience but looks mighty entertaining. Should see a European release this year.There's a great piece on YOKAI in the January section of monsterama.blogspot.com. See also www.obakemono.comwww.mangajin.com/mangajin/samplemj/ghosts/ghosts.htm

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

I am a story artist working in the animation industry. I retain all copyrights to original artwork & material posted on my blog.Copyright for the GARY & Ronald Searle blogs is held by the respective artists.